Party Programme of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ)

As resolved by the Party Conference of the Freedom Party of Austria on 18 June 2011 in Graz

Austria First

The freedom, security, peace and welfare of Austria and its people are the guidelines and the benchmarks for our actions as a social, meritocratic and patriotic Austrian political force.

Our roots in a rich history and in our traditions are inextricably linked with the responsibility that this creates to play an active role in shaping the future for the coming generations.

We are committed to our homeland of Austria as part of the German-speaking linguistic and cultural community, to the groups of people native to our country and to a Europe of free peoples and fatherlands.

We are committed to freedom and responsibility of the individual and the community, to democracy, to liberty and the rule of law, to the principles of the market economy and to social justice.

We are committed to Austria's right to self-determination and to preserving and protecting our view of mankind and society that has matured in our traditions and in our history.

Liberal policy guidelines

Freedom is our most valued asset. Since the civil revolution in 1848 we have dedicated ourselves to the struggle for freedom, and to defend it wherever necessary if what we have achieved comes under threat.

We are committed to protecting our homeland of Austria, our national identity and autonomy as well as our natural livelihood.

The freedom of citizens is ensured and protected by means of liberty and rule of law as well as a genuine community of solidarity.

The family, as a partnership between a man and a woman with common children, is the natural nucleus that holds a functioning society together, and which, with the solidarity of the generations, underpins our sustainability.

We encourage achievements in a market economy with social responsibility, protect private property and advocate an equitable distribution of contributions and benefits for the general public.

The purpose of public health-care is to provide citizens with the best possible preventive, medical and nursing care.

Austria must do all in its power to protect its national territory, maintain its neutrality and offer its citizens protection and assistance in the event of threats or danger.

To develop and evolve, a society requires comprehensive education, academic freedom and independent art and culture.

Austria's role in the world must be shaped by humanitarian responsibility, selfawareness and the preservation of Austrian interests.

Our European policy and our international contacts are based on an association of free peoples and autonomous nations.

1) Freedom and responsibility

Freedom is our most valued asset. Since the civil revolution in 1848 we have dedicated ourselves to the struggle for freedom, and to defend it wherever necessary if what we have achieved comes under threat.

The dignity of man is rooted in his freedom. Freedom in the form of self-determination goes hand-in-hand with the desire to assume responsibility, and rules out all forms of repression. Freedom and responsibility constitute the core of personal development and our community.

Our concept of freedom is rooted in an idealistic belief where people are not tied down by their material needs. The freedom of the individual is limited by the freedom of fellow citizens.

Freedom, human dignity and democratic solidarity are the foundations of our liberal ethos and our opinions on the following areas:

Homeland, identity and environment

Law and justice

Family and generations

Prosperity and social stability

Health

Security

Education, science, art and culture

Cosmopolitanism and autonomy

Europe of diversity

2) Homeland, identity and environment

We are dedicated to protecting our homeland of Austria, our national identity and autonomy as well as our natural livelihood.

We are committed to the self-determination right of the people, to the independence and autonomy of our homeland Austria and to the solidarity of all Austrian citizens.

We are aware of our attachment to our forefathers and our responsibility to our descendants, and want to preserve a homeland for future generations that facilitates autonomous living in an intact environment and positive development in freedom, peace and security.

The language, history and culture of Austria are German. The vast majority of Austrians are part of the German peoples', linguistic and cultural community. The indigenous ethnic groups of the Burgenland Croats, Slovenians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks and the Roma are historical minorities in our country and as such both enrich and are an integral part of Austria and our nation.

Humanity dictates that political asylum should be to granted in our country for those persecuted for racist, religious or political reasons, provided there is a need for such protection. Those entering Austria from a safe third country should apply for asylum there.

Austria is not an country of immigration. This is why we pursue a family policy centred around births. Legal and legitimate immigrants who are already integrated, who can speak the German language, who fully acknowledge our values and laws and have set down cultural roots should be given the right to stay and obtain citizenship.

Austria is part of the cultural region of Europe. The roots of European culture stretch back to Ancient Times. Europe was decisively shaped by Christianity, influenced by Judaism and other non-Christian religious communities, while humanism and the Enlightenment marked its continued fundamental development. We acknowledge the basic values this has created and the European view of the world, which we describe, in a broad sense, as cultural Christianity, and which is based on the separation of the church and the state.

We are prepared to put up a resolute defence of these European values and our basic liberal-democratic order against fanaticism and extremism, and to take action to maintain and develop our dominant culture and our way of life in peace and in freedom.

The privilege of status as a public body shall be reserved for religious communities who acknowledge the separation of the church and the state as an achievement of our enlightened society and adhere to our Constitution and laws. The freedom to practise religion in Austria also presupposes the freedom – protected by our rule of law – to not be exposed to religious doctrines.

Protecting our natural environment as a basis for our existence in our homeland of Austria, sustainable and careful management along with biological diversity are extremely important for us. We reject the use of nuclear power to generate energy. Animals, as our fellow creatures, shall be protected from distress and suffering by treating them with respect and in harmony with nature.

Protecting our natural environment as a basis for our existence in our homeland of Austria, sustainable and careful management along with biological diversity are extremely important for us. We reject the use of nuclear power to generate energy.

Animals, as our fellow creatures, shall be protected from distress and suffering by treating them with respect and in harmony with nature.

3) Law and justice

The freedom of citizens is ensured and protected by means of liberty and rule of law as well as a genuine community of solidarity.

We are committed to a social state governed by the rule of law, where our coexistence is influenced by law and order as well as social responsibility.

We acknowledge the democratic, rule-of-law, republican, power-separating and federal constitutional principles, respect for life and human dignity and the basic liberal freedoms such as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press.

We are committed to building a direct democracy, to the right to free, secret, fair, personal and direct proportional representation and to media laws that prevent monopolies and manipulations of public opinion.

Our country is a community of citizens that have particular rights and obligations.

The rights of our citizens include the right to vote, the right to proper education and the right to help from the community when in need. The obligations include solidarity with fellow citizens, the payment of contributions to preserve public functions, and personal commitments to maintain internal and external security and the fabric of society. Accepting and fulfilling international obligations may not be to the detriment of the Austrian population.

Our social policy is aimed at protecting against hardships that can arise due to age, disability, illness, accident, unemployment or through severe misfortune.

Social housing is designed primarily to cover the residential needs of Austrian citizens.

We are committed to a humanistic society in which solidarity is practised efficiently and fairly, and to the sustainable financing of the social fabric. This requires effective measures against social welfare abuse and the encouragement of performance.

4) Family and generations

The family, as a partnership between a man and a woman with common children, is the natural nucleus that holds a functioning society together, and which, with the solidarity of the generations, underpins our sustainability.

We are committed to equal opportunities between men and women, to mutual respect and to fair incomes, regardless of gender.

We emphatically reject the preferential treatment of a gender to overcome actual or perceived discrimination. Statistical inequalities caused by a variety of factors cannot be evened out by wronging individual people. This is why we speak out against any quota regulation or "gender mainstreaming".

The family, characterised by the responsibility of partners and generations for one another, is the foundation of our society. A child turns a partnership between a man and a woman into a family. Those who take on this responsibility as a single parent form a family with their children.

We are committed to the primacy of marriage between a man and a woman as a distinct way of protecting child welfare. Only partnerships between men and women provide our society with a wealth of children. We reject a separate legal institution for same-sex relations.

As part of the state's role as a protector we acknowledge the need to intervene in the autonomy of the family only where the failure of the family concerned is clearly damaging the welfare of the child.

If parents separate, the emphasis must be placed on maintaining joint responsibility for the child. In the tax system, families are to be construed as an economic community. The pension system must take account of years spent caring for children as well as caring for relatives.

Taking care of children within the security of a family takes precedence for us over substitute state-run systems. Parents should receive benefits to support them with this until school entrance age. At the same time we advocate a broad range of child-care places to offer genuine choice to the benefit of child welfare and professional development.

No leniency should be shown to brute force, especially against children. We are committed to the most severe rules of criminal law for crimes committed against children and vulnerable members of our society.

Austria's future depends on our young people. The purpose of our liberal youth policy is to have enlightened and mature citizens, equipped with all the knowledge and skills they require to hold their own as free and settled individuals.

We are committed to solidarity between the generations and recognise the social, cultural, economic and political contributions as well as the life experience of older generations. We advocate the participation of all generations in decision-making processes and the making of democratic decisions.

We are committed to a harmonised, performance-based and social state pension system as well as corporate and private pension planning.

We are determined to respect the dignity of the elderly and combat all forms of neglect, abuse and violence.

5) Prosperity and social stability

We encourage achievements in a market economy with social responsibility, protect private property and advocate an equitable distribution of contributions and benefits for the general public.

We are committed to a market economy with social responsibility, promote a focus on performance and facilitate growth for small and medium-sized businesses.

It must be worthwhile to put in an honest performance. Fair wages and reasonable corporate taxation should encourage a strong work ethic and facilitate ownership and prosperity.

We are committed to all Austrians having the best living conditions in freedom and in a social environment enjoying equal opportunities. The prosperity of Austria achieved industriously over generations must be preserved for the future. It must be used predominantly for those people and their descendants who worked to achieve it.

We are committed on the one hand to an economic policy focused on the specific challenges of our time, free from ideological reservations, and on the other to a balanced state budget over economic cycles.

Low taxes and performance incentives are crucial for successful business and a healthy labour market. These shall take precedence over subsidies and redistribution. Start-up aid and tax reliefs should be granted to young Austrian business-people.

We are committed to a performance-based and socially balanced tax system and assume equality in working salaries and capital incomes as the basis for broad prosperity and social justice. Investments in companies and creating jobs should be favourably treated in corporate taxation.

The aim of a liberal budget policy is to relieve the pressure on citizens. The rates of taxes and charges for employers and employees should be reduced to the necessary minimum by means of effective administration as well as the economical, efficient and expedient use of public funds.

Our economic policy recognises the strengths of industry focusing on technology and exports, the innovation of small and medium-sized companies and their contribution to employment and work-linked training as well as the individual service focus and earnings potential of our micro and small enterprises.

We pursue a comprehensive all-round infrastructure strategy in line with the significance of information and communication technologies, a strategy that aligns the services of the individual carriers with one another and ensures the freedom of people to enjoy individual mobility.

A healthy and efficient farming community is essential for security of supply and the protection of our natural livelihood in a valuable natural and cultural landscape. Austria's farmers should be free of subsidy constraints and the interests of agriculture corporations targeting monopolies. Consequently, the output of agriculture should be compensated for with fair product prices.

6) Health

The purpose of public health-care is to provide citizens with the best possible preventive and medical care.

People's right to life, health and dignity are not subject to utilitarian considerations. Therefore, a person's existence may never be called into question by economic considerations, nor may they be deprived of their dignity by the misuse of medicines and gene technology or neglect in relation to illness or disability.

We are committed to the political goal of avoiding multi-class medical care in public health care. Public health care must rule out privileges based on social origin or religious orientation.

The protection of life as well as maintaining and restoring mental and physical health are our objectives for public health care. Alongside treatment and aftercare we attach great importance to prevention.

Administration and organisation in health care must be based on the principles of frugality, economic efficiency and expedience so that the people benefit from health-care spending. We are committed to a financing structure for health care that avoids high incidental wage costs where possible, and ensures a broad payment of contributions. Health care and nursing care should be financed from the same source.

People working in medical professions should receive the best training possible in Austria, and be able to carry out their responsible tasks with fair remuneration and sufficient rest.

Health care is based above all on self-responsibility. This is why we advocate for a clear labelling of all ingredients in foodstuffs, combat the abuse of addictive drugs and commit to ensuring agriculture in harmony with nature that is free of genetically manipulated organisms.

Sport and exercise, especially in our nurseries and schools, should be actively supported by relevant policies. Science of diet and nutrition should be included in the curricula during compulsory education. The medical care of children and young people is most important for us.

For foreign citizens, access to the services of Austrian health-care must be ensured by means of an independent social security system.

7) Security

Austria must do all in its power to protect its national territory, maintain its neutrality and offer its citizens protection and assistance in the event of threats or danger.

Law and order are fundamental values of our liberal ethos and promote the security of our citizens.

We view security as a basic need and vital requirement for the positive development of mankind. Safeguarding our security requires the ability to defend ourselves. Hence, we are committed to the best possible training and equipping of the bodies of our police force and the army.

In combating organised crime, gangs and human trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorism, violence and other types of crime, the state has to adopt a decisive approach in employing the options available.

We categorically reject the death penalty.

Protecting society as well as protecting and helping the victims of crime take top priority in the penal system. This must be taken into account when integrating offenders back into society. Victims should be the primary beneficiaries of financial penalties. In a humane society, there must be a distinct difference between sentences for violent crimes and sentences for crimes against property.

Foreigners convicted of a crime in Austria must be deported to their homeland.

We are committed to a comprehensive defence of our country and to general compulsory service for all male citizens in the form of military service or alternative national service as a personal contribution to the security and independence of Austria and to social peace. For female citizens, there should still be an opportunity to take up voluntary military or alternative national service, or social service.

Protecting our homeland and defending our country take precedence over deployments of the army abroad. The deployment of Austrian soldiers abroad should be completely voluntary, and only take place in the event of disasters, for humanitarian missions, for peacekeeping and under a UN mandate.

Austria is an autonomous and peacemaking country, and must therefore not be a member of a military pact. Decisions about the deployment of our army and our soldiers are made by Austria alone, as a sovereign and neutral state, aware of its responsibility for the security and freedom of its citizens.

8) Education, science, art and culture

To develop and evolve, a society requires comprehensive education, academic freedom and independent art and culture.

To enable people to evolve and develop fully in society we require spiritual education, the best possible training and further education, a guarantee of freedom in teaching and learning and equal social opportunities. To this end, scientific research and teaching, the development and opening up of the arts as well as the teaching of the arts must be free.

The main tasks of public school and education policy include conveying the techniques of reading, writing and counting, promoting the comprehensive acquisition of knowledge, skills and competences, encouraging individual talents and abilities, offering the best possible training to prepare for professional life as well as communicating the values and traditions of our community. Schools and education must take account of the diverse abilities and interests of people, match this diversity and abstain from all forms of ideological paternalism.

Mastering German as the language of instruction is essential for participating in regular education at publicly-run schools in Austria.

We are committed to the free progress of science for the common good.

Science is based on the unity of research and teaching and only serves to establish the truth; it requires neither extraneous dictation nor any presumed educational focus or consideration. The state must refrain from making ideological interventions into the autonomy of the sciences.

Targeted research and development work are pillars for the positive future of our homeland. Basic research is just as important as applied research. Research and teaching may not be subordinate or of secondary importance to economic interests. We are committed to the ethical boundaries of research, which may not be overstepped.

Art and culture in all their manifestations are significant symbols of the identity of our society. Culture, as the totality of all forms of human expression, is expressed in the most creative manner in art.

In our society, art is only limited by the legal system and by the humanist view of mankind and society that underlies our Constitution. Artistic freedom is subject to the freedom of citizens to criticise and to undertake critical analyses of art.

Our western culture is rich and diverse. It unites the cultural nations of Europe. In this context, preserving our cultural heritage is extremely important for us.

We need to enable our own culture to continue developing freely from its high level, and protect our native language as a key factor establishing our culture.

The main task of cultural policy is to promote the further development of our society's rich culture. In this respect, policies only have to create the framework to guarantee the freedom and diversity of art, as this diversity evolves through individual artistic performances. Art may never be exploited by the state, it is an end in itself. Only this way can art remain a school of imagination and self-awareness.

9) Cosmopolitanism and independence

Austria's role in the world must be shaped by humanitarian responsibility, self-awareness and the preservation of Austrian interests.

The sovereignty and freedom of our homeland open us up to the world. Our foreign policy must be driven by humanitarian responsibility, self-awareness and preserving the security as well as the economic and cultural interests of Austria and its citizens throughout the world.

This means we are committed to a foreign policy that focuses on securing the sovereignty of Austria and the objective of protecting the freedom of its citizens. Any foreign policy, bilateral or multilateral activity in Austrian politics must take these common Austrian interests into account.

We are committed to the neutrality of Austria in the interests of peace and to European solidarity. We want to contribute to ensuring peace in the world, in keeping with a tradition of arbitration and reconciliation.

In addition to autonomy and freedom, our openness to the world is based on the love for our homeland and the people in our land as well as cultivating our traditions, our identity and our culture.

Those who value their own culture and origins can sincerely respect other cultures, or fend them off if necessary, should they become aggressive and threaten to displace our own culture. The basic principle applicable here is that Austrian development aid is primarily given to facilitate self-help. It promotes freedom and responsibility and is a response to crisis situations and refugees.

Austria supports the interests of the German and Ladin linguistic minorities in Southern Tyrol and the interests of all German native speakers from the territories of the former Habsburg monarchy. We strive for the unity of Tyrol and commit to South-Tyrol's right of self-determination and to supporting those displaced.

10) Europe of diversity

Our European policy and our international relationships are based on an association of free peoples and autonomous fatherlands.

We are committed to a Europe of peoples and autochthonous groups of people which have developed through history, and firmly reject any artificial synchronisation of the diverse European languages and cultures by means of forced multiculturalism, globalisation and mass immigration. Europe shall not be reduced to a political project of the European Union.

We are committed to a Europe of self-determined peoples and fatherlands and to cooperation within Europe according to the basic principles of subsidiarity and federalism. The destiny of Europe must be characterised by the organisational freedom of its states.

The aim of European integration is to have a community of states that make up Europe geographically, spiritually and culturally, and which have bound themselves by the western values, the cultural heritage and the traditions of the European peoples.

We stand for a Europe that facilitates genuine democracy and respects responsible, free citizens. Fundamental changes to the Federal Constitution via treaties, such as in European law for example, require a binding referendum.

We are committed to a set of European agreements with a catalogue of rights and obligations for the Union and Member States. The basic constitutional principles of sovereign Member States must have absolute priority over Community law.

The Beneš decrees and AVNOJ regulations that infringe upon human rights, coupled with all the related amnesty laws, cannot be accepted in a humanist Europe and should be revoked in the interests of justice for those displaced, murdered and expropriated.

We are committed to a common foreign and security policy of such a European alliance of states that preserves Austrian neutrality and maintains distance from non-European powers and military alliances dominated by non-European countries to safeguard common European interests worldwide.